Post your favourite poems

[The Wanderer]

"Desert Places"

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it---it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less---
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars---on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.

--Robert Frost, 1936

 

[Alisaura]

That John Donne one was amazing... I love that really old medieval kind of style... I should read more Shakespeare...

We did a poem in German Literature once that I loved... I'm desperately trying to remember the title, or even the poet... Goethe, it must have been Goethe... I can't remember what it was called, but the last line goes something like "Auf die Himmel an die Erde, Falln sich die Engel tot"... Fromt he heaven to the earth, the angels fall dead.... Anyone have the faintest idea what I'm blathering about? It was a fantastic poem in either language...

 

[The Wanderer]

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

-- William Shakespeare

 

[zooropamanda]

Im lovin the poetry festival. THanks for starting it scatter!
I say this thread never dies...

this aint a poem but one of my fave quotes from one of my faves, Mr Oscar Wilde

"We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars."

 

[Peaseblossom]

A little more Donne for those of us who just can't get enough of Old English Dead Guys:

THE FLEA.
by John Donne
MARK but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ;
And this, alas ! is more than we would do.

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

A little dark perhaps, but funny, and a good read.

------------------
We are such stuff that dreams are made on. Tempest, IV,i

 

[The_Sweetest_Thing]

And another:

fragment: "To the Moon"
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing Heaven, and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?

 

[scatteroflight]

This is something a bit different. It is from a book by Mary Stewart called The Last Enchantment. It's the third book of her Merlin trilogy (the first two are The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills.) I love Arthurian legend and her books are the biggest reason for that. I focused on Merlin for my little mini-thesis for my English Honours program and wrote a lot about the books. Her Merlin is one of my favourite literary characters of all time. If you like Arthurian legend, the Middle Ages, or just good writing, it's a fantastic trilogy. In the afterword Mary Stewart mentions that this poem--a song Merlin sings in the book--is based on a famous Anglo-Saxon poem called "The Wanderer."

I just think it is really beautiful.


He who is companionless
Seeks oftentimes the mercy
The grace
Of the creator, God.
Sad, sad the faithful man
Who outlives his lord.
He sees the world stand waste
As a wall blown on by the wind,
As an empty castle, where the snow
Sifts through the window-frames,
Drifts on the broken bed
And the black hearth-stone.

Alas, the bright cup!
Alas, the hall of feasting!
Alas the sword that kept
The sheep-fold and the apple-orchard
Safe from the claw of the wolf!
The wolf-slayer is dead.
The law-giver, the law-upholder is dead,
While the sad wolf's self, with the eagle, and the raven,
Come as kings, instead.

 

[Diemen]

Here's a really beautiful poem that was turned into a really beautiful song by Loreena McKennitt.

---------
"The Two Trees" - W.B. Yeats

Beloved, gaze in thine own heart
The holy tree is growing there
From joy the holy branches start
And all the trembling flowers they bear
The changing colours of its fruit
Have dowered the stars with merry light
The surety of its hidden root
Has planted quiet in the night
The shaking of its leafy head
Has given the waves their melody
And made my lips and music wed
Murmuring a wizard song for thee

There the Loves a circle go
The flaming circle of our days
Gyring, spiring to and fro
In those great ignorant leafy ways
Remembering all that shaken hair
And how the winged sandals dart
Thine eyes grow full of tender care
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart

Gaze no more in the bitter glass
The demons, with their subtle guile
Lift up before to when they pass
Or only gaze a little while
For there a fatal image grows
That the stormy night receives
Roots half hidden under snows
Broken boughs and blackened leaves

For all thing turn to barenness
In the dim glass the demons hold
The glass of outer weariness
Made when God slept in times of old
There, through the broken branches, go
The ravens of unresting thought
Flying, crying, to and fro
Cruel claw and hungry throat
Or else they stand and sniff the wind
And shake their ragged wings: alas!
Thy tender eyes grow all unkind
Gaze no more in the bitter glass

Beloved, gaze in thine own heart
The holy tree is growing there
From joy and holy branches start
And all the trembling flowers they bear
Remembering all that shaken hair
And how the winged sandals dart
Thine eyes grow full of tender care
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart

 

[Peaseblossom]

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

from Song of Myself

I.
I celebrate myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loaf and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease . . . observing a spear of summer grass.

II.
Houses and rooms are full of perfumes . . . the shelves
are crowded with perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself, and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.

The atmosphere is not a perfume . . . it has no taste
of the distillation . . . it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever . . . I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.

The smoke of my own breath,
Echoes, ripples, and buzzed whispers . . . loveroot, silkthread,
crotch and vine,
My respiration and inspiration . . . the beating of my heart . . .
the passing of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore
and darkcolored sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,
The sound of the belched words of my voice . . . words loosed
to the eddies of the wind,

A few light kisses . . . a few embraces . . . reaching around of arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along
the fields and hill-sides,
The feeling of health . . . the full-noon trill . . . the song of me
rising from bed and meeting the sun.

Have you reckoned a thousand acres much? Have you reckoned
the earth much?
Have you practiced so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin
of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun . . . there are
millions of suns left,
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand . . . nor
look through the eyes of the dead. nor feed on the spectres
in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.

 

[scatteroflight]

Here's another Old Dead English Guy classic! This one is by John Milton, the man who brought us Paradise Lost. I'm not a huge fan of PL (ok, so I only studied a little bit of it) but I love this poem.

ON HIS BLINDNESS

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide;
"Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or His own gifts. Who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state
Is Kingly: thousands at His bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait."

 

[zooropamanda]

A Dream within a Dream
by Edgar Allen Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet, if Hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it, therefore, the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of golden sand
How few
yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep
O God
can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God
can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?


[This message has been edited by zooropamanda (edited 12-04-2001).]

 

[Diemen]

My favorite Shakespeare Sonnet:

Sonnet #116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O, no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

[This message has been edited by Diemen (edited 12-04-2001).]

 

[Diemen]

A couple more Sonnets

#24
Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stelled
Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;
My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,
And perspective it is best painter's art.
For through the painter must you see his skill
To find where your true image pictured lies,
Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,
That hath his windows glaz?d with thine eyes.
Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:
Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me
Are windows to my breast, wherethrough the sun
Delights to peep, to gaze therein to thee.
Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art:
They draw but what they see, konw not the heart.

#61
Is it thy will thy image should keep open
My heavy eyelids to the weary night?
Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken
While shadoes like to thee do mock my sight?
Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee
So far from home into my deeds to pry,
To find out shames and idle hours in me,
The scope and tenor of thy jealousy?
O, no, thy love, though much, is not so great;
It is my love that keeps mine eyes awake,
Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,
To play the watchman ever for thy sake.
For thee watch I whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,
From me far off, with others all too near.

 

[BabyGrace]

Edgar Allen Poe is probably my favourite poet of all time.

 

[The Wanderer]

"Stations"

Some women love
to wait
for life... for a ring
in the June light... for a touch
of the sun to heal them... for another
woman's voice... to make them whole
to untie their hands
put words in their mouths
form to their passages... sound
to their screams... for some other sleeper
to remember... their future... their past.

Some women wait for their right
train... in the wrong station
in the alleys of morning
for the noon to holler
the night come down.

Some women wait for love
to rise up
the child of their promise
to gather from earth
what they do not plant
to claim pain for labor
to become
the tip of an arrow... to aim
at the heart of now
but it never stays.

Some women wait for visions
that do not return
where they were not welcome
naked
for invitations to places
they always wanted
to visit
to be repeated.

Some women wait for themselves
around the next corner
and call the empty spot peace
but the opposite of living
is only not living
and the stars do not care.

Some women wait for something
to change... and nothing
does change
so they change
themselves.


-Audre Lorde, 1986


something I just discovered the other night amidst the volumes of unread poetry on my bookshelf; most of you probably have never heard of her, she was a black woman who grew up in New York City after her parents immigrated from Granada; this is quite a stunning piece in my opinion

[This message has been edited by The Wanderer (edited 12-04-2001).]

 

[BabyGrace]

did I say poet? i meant writer...

Some women wait for themselves
around the next corner
and call the empty spot peace
but the opposite of living
is only not living
and the stars do not care.

Some women wait for something
to change... and nothing
does change
so they change
themselves.

great poem, Wanderer. i'll have to look into her writing if i ever manage to find time for things like reading poetry

 

[awakening]

[

J'ai tant r?v? de toi que tu perds ta r?alit?.
Est-il encore temps d'atteindre ce corps vivant
Et de baiser sur cette bouche la naissance
De la voix qui m'est ch?re?

J'ai tant r?v? de toi que mes bras habitu?s
En ?treignant ton ombre
A se croiser sur ma poitrine ne se plieraient pas
Au contour de ton corps, peut-?tre.
Et que, devant l'apparence r?elle de ce qui me hante
Et me gouverne depuis des jours et des ann?es,
Je deviendrais une ombre sans doute.
O balances sentimentales.

J'ai tant r?v? de toi qu'il n'est plus temps
Sans doute que je m'?veille.
Je dors debout, le corps expos?
A toutes les apparences de la vie
Et de l'amour et toi, la seule
qui compte aujourd'hui pour moi,
Je pourrais moins toucher ton front
Et tes l?vres que les premi?res l?vres
et le premier front venu.

J'ai tant r?v? de toi, tant march?, parl?,
Couch? avec ton fant?me
Qu'il ne me reste plus peut-?tre,
Et pourtant, qu'a ?tre fant?me
Parmi les fant?mes et plus ombre
Cent fois que l'ombre qui se prom?ne
Et se prom?nera all?grement
Sur le cadran solaire de ta vie.

Robert Desnos.


Le front aux vitres comme font les veilleurs de chagrin
Ciel dont j'ai d?pass? la nuit
Plaines toutes petites dans mes mains ouvertes
Dans leur double horizon, inerte indiff?rent
Le front aux vitres comme font les veilleurs de chagrin
Je te cherche par-del? l'attente
Par-del? moi-m?me
Et je ne sais plus tant je t'aime
Lequel de nous deux est absent.

Paul Eluard.

 

[pax]

"The Shirt"
Jane Kenyon

(GREAT poet you should all read. Unfortunately she died of leukemia in 1995.

)

The shirt touches his neck
and smooths over his back.
It slides down his sides.
It even goes down below his belt--
down into his pants.
Lucky shirt.

{dedicated to the PLEBA lassies!}

------------------
If you cannot live together in here, you cannot live together out there, let me tell ya. --Bono

You've got to cry without weeping, talk without speaking, scream without raising your voice... --Bono

 

[scatteroflight]

Thought I'd start this thread up again...

This is a very old Celtic poem. I have to wonder what it sounded like in the original language.


SONG OF AMERGIN

I am a stag: of seven tines,
I am a flood: across a plain,
I am a wind: on a deep lake,
I am a tear: the Sun lets fall,
I am a hawk: above the cliff,
I am a thorn: beneath the nail,
I am a wonder: among flowers,
I am a wizard: who but I
Sets the cool head aflame with smoke?

I am a spear: that roars for blood,
I am a salmon: in a pool,
I am a lure: from paradise,
I am a hill: where poets walk,
I am a boar: ruthless and red,
I am a breaker: threatening doom,
I am a tide: that drags to death,
I am an infant: who but I
Peeps from the unhewn dolmen, arch?

I am the womb: of every holt,
I am the blaze: on every hill,
I am the queen: of every hive,
I am the shield: for every head,
I am the tomb: of every hope.

 

[scatteroflight]

Another good one:


BUT FOR LUST

But for lust we could be friends,
On each other's necks could weep:
In each other's arms could sleep
In the calm the cradle lends:

Lends awhile, and takes away.
But for hunger, but for fear,
Calm could be our day and year
From the yellow to the grey:

From the gold to the grey hair,
But for passion we could rest,
But for passion we could feast
On compassion everywhere.

Even in this night I know
By the awful living dead,
By the craving tear I shed,
Somewhere, somewhere it is so.

-Ruth Pitter

 

[Achtung Bubba]

Everybody's doin' it,
Picking their nose and chewin' it.

They think it's candy, but it's snot.

- Anonymous

 

[Achtung Bubba]

The poem above is a joke, of course.

Actually, here is the first of three of my favorites:

"Me"
by Jewel Kilcher
(found in the liner notes to Pieces of You)

I
I have blonde hair
I pluck my eyebrows
I have my father's nose,
my mother's hands
I have crooked teeth
and green eyes
I play guitar
I used to get sick alot
I like the color of wine
I've cheated on boyfriends
I've owned fake ID
But my hair is still blonde
and my teeth are still crooked
and I probably won't always like
the color of wine

II
I have firm breasts
I have lips that always smile
I have veins that bleed
I laugh when I'm nervous
I feel the pain of others
but cry for no reason
I like open flame
I've been selfish since a child
I'm from Alaska
but hate the cold
I've cheated on diets
I've faked applications
But I still bleed
and my lips still smile
and my breasts won't
always be firm

III
I have strong shoulders
I have olive skin
I have a Swiss face I
borrowed from my grandmother
I have long nails on my right hand
which break regularly
My little toe is strange
I write
I used to make wreaths from dandelions
I brush my hair before bed
I cheated on tests
I faked flirtatious French accents
But I still have gold skin
and my nails still break
and I probably won't always have
strong shoulders
and I may not always write
But maybe I'll start
making wreaths
from dandelions again

 

[Achtung Bubba]

"Fisherman's Daugher"
by Daniel Lanois
(spoken over the song of the same name)

I laid awake a whole night long,
Waiting for the sun to beat down on my head
In this broken bed.

I laid awake and dreamt of ships
Passing through night,
Searching for shelter,
Stopping at no harbor.

I heard the screaming waters call
Sixty sailors' names,
Raging words, pounding on the sail
Like an angry whale.

I felt the iron rudder skip,
The smell of seeping oil,
The heat of slipping rope,
Failing hands, failing hope.

Every sailor asks,
Asks the question
About the cargo he is carrying.

God's anger broke through the clouds
And He spilt the cargo for all to see,

The fault of the sailor,
The fault of he
Who asks no questions
About the cargo he is carrying.

 

[Achtung Bubba]

"Love's as Warm as Tears"
By C.S. Lewis

Love's as warm as tears,
Love is tears:
Pressure within the brain,
Tension at the throat,
Deluge, weeks of rain,
Haystacks afloat,
Featureless seas between
Hedges, where once was green.

Love's as fierce as fire,
Love is fire:
All sorts - infernal heat
Clinkered with greed and pride,
Lyric desire, sharp-sweet,
Laughing, even when denied,
And that empyreal flame
Whence all loves came.

Love's as fresh as spring,
Love is spring:
Bird-song hung in the air,
Cool smells in a wood,
Whispering "Dare! Dare!"
To sap, to blood,
Telling "Ease, safety, rest,
Are good; not best."

Love's as hard as nails,
Love is nails:
Blunt, thick, hammered through
The medial nerves of One
Who, having made us, knew
The thing He had done,
Seeing (what all that is)
Our cross, and His.

 

[zooropamanda]

When We Two Parted


When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever the years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder, thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
Sunk, chill on my brow,
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame;
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me...
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well..
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met
In silence I grieve
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.

by Lord Byron

 

[The_Sweetest_Thing]

Promised Man

And what did he then perceive, In the secret of their smiles
As he revealed, Hopes for his own life
Surely ridicule disguised, Maybe jealousy and spite
Did they have sour grapes, Whilst the fruit was ripe
Walking lonely from his friends, Still she dreamed without an end
Knew what her life would be, With or without their belief
Now talk would end, Smile for pretence
Beneath the ground he breathes, For he is a mustard seed

He Belives What He Believes, Mystified By His Ideals
Know His Treasures In No Land, Born To Be His Promised Man

Into the night, The eventide of life
Seculsion is the womb, Wherein rival futures duel
His mind is so alive, Seducing him to strive
What difference does it make, To rise to breathe?
If living has no stake, No passion no belief?
But does he squander time, Chasing dreams too great, too high?
Strong delusion is his need.....to grind
And whilst lucid he concludes, What they call walls is his cocoon

By Raft Averroes